{"id":560874,"date":"2026-07-21T14:29:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T14:29:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/560874\/"},"modified":"2026-07-21T14:29:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T14:29:08","slug":"protests-in-italy-after-moroccan-man-dies-pleading-for-help-from-police-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/560874\/","title":{"rendered":"Protests in Italy after Moroccan man dies pleading for help from police \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Police have clashed with demonstrators during a protest in the Italian <\/a>city of Bologna after a Moroccan<\/a>-born man died pleading for help under police restraint.<\/p>\n

Human rights campaigners and Italy\u2019s opposition parties have demanded urgent answers over the death on Sunday of Abderrahim \u2060Fakir (42) who had lived in Italy since he was five years old and ran a small removals and cleaning business.<\/p>\n

A video shared widely on Italian media shows Fakir, who reportedly had heart issues and asthma, repeatedly calling out \u201caiuto, aiuto, basta\u201d (Help, help, that\u2019s enough) as two officers sit on him and ambulance workers look on.<\/p>\n

After he stops moving, the police officers are seen binding his ankles together, only later checking his vital signs with the ambulance workers, the video shows. Prosecutors have opened an investigation and requested the officers\u2019 body cam footage.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t die like this,\u201d Fakir\u2019s sister, Khadija, told the Corriere della Sera newspaper. \u201cThe police have to protect us. If someone is agitated, you have to calm them down … not kill them like a dog.\u201d<\/p>\n

Italian media reported that police had been called to the scene, in the north-eastern neighbourhood of Pilastro, shortly \u200bafter noon on Sunday by local residents who were concerned by Fakir\u2019s erratic and aggressive behaviour.<\/p>\n

The officers reportedly called emergency services soon after they arrived, and tried \u200bto calm Fakir before using pepper spray and holding him down while \u200btrying to handcuff \u200chim. They told ambulance personnel that he was \u201chaving a psychiatric episode\u201d.<\/p>\n

During the protests late on Monday, firecrackers were thrown near police buildings and police reacted \u200busing tear gas and water cannon. A group of demonstrators also sat down in a square holding a photograph of Fakir, the Ansa news agency reported.<\/p>\n

The incident has been compared in Italy to George Floyd\u2019s murder in the US six years ago, and also prompted comparisons with tactics used by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) under Donald Trump<\/a>.<\/p>\n

However, Italy\u2019s interior minister, Matteo Piantedosi, told public television: \u201cWhoever makes insulting remarks against the police shows they have no trust in our law enforcement nor in our justice system [and] should look into what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tommaso Foti, the European \u200caffairs minister, said: \u201cThe \u200cchants of \u2018police murderers\u2019 and \u2018the whole \u200cworld hates you\u2019 shouted during a demonstration in Bologna … are disgraceful.\u201d<\/p>\n

The far-right deputy prime minister, Matteo Salvini, also defended the police, while Galeazzo Bignami, head of prime minister Giorgia Meloni\u2019s<\/a> Brothers of Italy party in parliament\u2019s lower house, praised the officers\u2019 \u201cprofessional conduct\u201d.<\/p>\n

Ilaria Cucchi, a senator whose brother died in custody in 2009, told Agence-France Presse she was sickened by the \u201csolidarity and thanks\u201d expressed to police after such an \u201cinhumane act\u201d.<\/p>\n

Cucchi, a member of the opposition Greens and Left alliance (AVS) party, criticised Meloni and her coalition government, saying their \u201cpolicies seeped in hatred and racism\u201d had fostered a climate of violence.<\/p>\n

Francesco Boccia, head of the centre-left Democratic party (PD) in the senate, told La Repubblica daily: \u201cIf the right wants to import the ICE model, this is the wrong country for it. We have democratic antibodies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barbara Spinelli, a lawyer, told Ansa she had met Fakir last year when he applied to renew his permit to stay. He had been \u201ca very kind, well educated, respectful person\u201d who was in Italy legally but worried about being expelled, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI told him: \u2018We are in Italy, a democratic country. Here the police respect the rules,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t know how I will ever again manage to tell someone they don\u2019t need to be afraid.\u201d \u2013 Guardian\/agencies<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Police have clashed with demonstrators during a protest in the Italian city of Bologna after a Moroccan-born man…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":560875,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[969,18425,42,66408,102,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-560874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-donald-trump","tag-giorgia-meloni","tag-headlines","tag-ice-us-immigration-and-customs-enforcement","tag-italy","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=560874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560874\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/560875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=560874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=560874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=560874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}